Dog fouling - please bag it and bin it!

Sam has been with us for eight months now. He is such a friendly boy who would love a fire to curl up in front of. If you can give him a home please get in touch with us.

Published:14:23Saturday 28 November 2015

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We’ve all seen it, we’ve all smelt it and we’ve all stood in it. Dog waste is everywhere! We’ve even seen it just a foot away from poo bins in the park; the park where our kids go to play.

As dog owners we all know when our furry friend is getting ready to have a poo. This should be the signal to reach for the bags.

But we’ve all seen people conveniently turning away just as their dog is getting ready for a poo and ‘unfortunately’ miss seeing the event because they didn’t realise what was happening! We’ve all seen people doing a check if anyone has observed their dog doing their business. If the coast is clear on they walk, leaving the waste behind!

There are places that we walk our dogs where it is not always necessary to pick it up. Walking up in the hills or through the countryside for example, as long as it’s not on clearly defined walkways. However, urban streets and public areas can hardly be included in this catagory. As dog owners it is our responsibility to clean up after our pets. They can’t do it! It is something that has to go hand in hand with having a dog and if we don’t want to do it or can’t be bothered then we shouldn’t have one.

As I have mentioned before on other topics, the key to ensuring this problem becomes less of an issue is to make it socially unacceptable. Blaming it on a lack of dog wardens is totally missing the point. Blaming it on the lack of poo bins and using this as justification not to bag the poo is dillusional. We need to take personal responsibility and if we all did, then there wouldn’t be any dog poo lying around at all. It really is that simple.

Confronting those that don’t bag their dog’s waste is probably what we would all want to do but most of us don’t. The fear of a load of abuse back, or worse, is reason enough not to. It’s a shame but totally understandable. For this reason the problem cannot, realistically, be policed either by the authorities or members of the public. It has to become a major social no no.

I’m sure that we can all think of millions of things that we would rather be doing than poo picking. As responsible dog owners though it is essential that we do. Loads do but clearly too many just don’t. Come on, play the game folks!